Track-laying vehicles such as tractors, weapons carriers, and personnel carriers, snow vehicles and the like ride on tracks composed of multiple track plates. Each track plate includes a terrain gripping lug known in the art as a grouser bar. Grouser bars are an integral part of the track plate, and are subject to the most wear of any portion of the plate. As the grouser bars are worn away, and in particular the corners of the bar are eroded, they must be rebuilt or replaced. As the track plates represent large mass of tough steel, it is advantageous to rebuld the grouser bars rather than replace the entire plate.
It is known in the prior art to rebuild a grouser bar by various methods. These include welding shoes onto the worn surface, cutting off the worn grouser bar and welding on a complete new one, of adding metal to the worn surface by repeated passes of a welder using a consumable electrode. None of these methods are satisfactory.
Welding shoes onto the worn surface is a difficult process, since it involves securing shoes which have the proper dimensions to rebuild the worn bar to its original dimensions. Also, the weld seam is a stress concentration point, and a likely spot for structural failure. Cutting off the worn bar involves wasting the mass of the bar which remains, and also requires a great deal of time in the welding process and in the refitting process. Here again, the weld seam is a likely area for structural failure. Further, it is difficult to weld hard, long-wearing alloy material with any ductility.
Rebuilding the grouser bar through repeated welding passes is a tedious job, even for a skilled welder. Carelessness will result in voids or other faults in the added material, and in any event the added metal must be ground down to the desired finished size. The labor involved in this process is very costly.